US Elections: 5 Questions On Israel For The Next Debate
Justin Elliott at Mother Jones blog posted questions that five experts would ask the US Presidential candidates if given the chance.
One of the experts, Dr. Stephen Zunes posed the question:
For Senator Clinton. During the 2006 war in Lebanon, you co-sponsored a resolution condemning Hezbollah for its alleged use of “human shields.” Since then, detailed on-the-ground studies by Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch, while highly critical of Hezbollah’s responsibility for civilian deaths in Israel, have challenged the claims by the Bush administration that Hezbollah’s alleged use of “human shields” contributed to the high numbers of civilian deaths from Israeli bombardment in Lebanon. Similarly, the reports of these credible human rights organizations have placed responsibility for the vast majority of the 800 Lebanese civilian deaths on the government of Israel. Are you willing to acknowledge that Israel was culpable for most of the Lebanese civilian deaths? And, as president, would you belittle the findings of human rights groups in order to support violations of international humanitarian law by U.S. allies?
Dr. Stephen Zunes is a Professor of Politics at the University of San Francisco and a consultant for a number of peace and human rights organizations in both the United States and overseas. While understanding his desire to promote the good work of NGOs, this was a particularly bad example to seize upon.
The “detailed on-the-ground studies” Dr Zones refers to are largely based on “evidence” provided by Lebanese eyewitnesses, whose credibility and links to Hezbollah were not investigated by the NGOs. The inaccuracies of these particular Amnesty and Human Rights Watch (HRW) reports were investigated by the Intelligence and Terrorism Center. The Center’s report presented detailed photographic and documentary evidence directly contradicting Amnesty’s and HRW’s key claims on which their accusations rest. A summary of this report is available here
Another issue is the number of civilians dead, as provided by HRW. The figure cannot be deemed “credible”. Indeed, HRW’s casualty figures were supplied by Hezbollah (though HRW buries this fact in a footnote). Shortly after the bombing in Qana, HRW provided inflated statistics to the media, ignoring actual figures provided by the Red Cross earlier on. HRW’s inflated figure was twice that of the Red Cross. See more about this here.
Once one realises that human shields were being used and that civilian deaths were a result of Hezbollah’s violation of international law (in particular Protocol I (1977) of the Geneva Convention, article 51(7)) the situation must be viewed in a radically different light to that which the NGOs originally reported. Perhaps Dr Zunes would be interested in this report which describes the reporting on Human Rights organisations during the conflict, or this article on relevant international law?
Taking all of this into account, a better question for Senator Clinton might be “As president, what would you do to ensure human rights organisations do not misinform the public?” I wonder what her answer would be? Even when it is the result of faulty methodology and unreliable or partisan witnesses, human rights organisations undermine the very basis human rights when they get their facts so badly wrong.
